What We Lose

May 15, 2017
Exacting reflections on race, mourning, and family are at the center of this novel about a college student whose mother dies of cancer. Born to an American father and a South African mother, Thandi is a character defined by conflicting conceptions of identity, belonging, and class, divisions that only deepen in the wake of her mother’s death. Early chapters establish these dichotomies in content and form, contrasting Thandi’s charged visits to Johannesburg with her Philadelphia coming of age by way of photographs, articles, graphs, and song lyrics. The first third of the novel culminates with Thandi discovering that she is pregnant, before then detailing her mother’s illness and how the resulting heartbreak ushered Thandi into an ill-fated long distance relationship with Peter, the child’s father. Peter moves to New York to marry Thandi and raise their child, Mahpee, but all parties soon glean the untenability of Thandi’s building a new family without processing the grief of her original one. Though too restrained, there are some inspired moments, and Clemmons admirably balances the story’s myriad complicated themes.

This unusual audiobook is well performed by Nicole Lewis, whose voice shifts appropriately from pragmatic to passionate, keeping the listener engaged. At its heart is the story of Thandi, an African-American young woman who is dealing with the complexities of life, death, and love that spans the space between. The narrative leaps among time periods and significant events, memories, and even dreams that Thandi experiences. Thanks to Lewis's skill and timing, one can largely follow the story despite the shifts. A glance at the novel's print version shows that the listener is missing some context without the content present there--photographs, footnotes, excerpted material, for example--but the audiobook stands on its own if the listener is patient. L.B.F. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine